I always forget until I hear the music again how...normal Anville Town makes me feel. Like it's okay for me to be like this.
There's this Depot Agent, who talks about the trains as if they're living beings, the way I treat them.
Or this person, who just acknowledges that people do like trains and wonders what draws people in the most.
Or the mother and son railfans visiting Anville Town together. Since I tend to do train stuff with my dad, who I get my love of steam locomotives from, this warms my heart so much.
And then not in Anville Town, but elsewhere, we have this guy...
I can't believe they put O. Winston Link in this game.
Pokemon Black and White doesn't treat railfans as a joke. It just allows them to be people. The two strongest trainers in the game run the subway arm of the Unova MTA. They're not mocked for being the way they are (read: arguably the most autistic characters in the franchise), they're just allowed to be themselves, and other characters are actually in awe of them and take them seriously as trainers.
This is one of those rare cases where the source material doesn't actually make fun of people like me and instead just allows us to be ourselves, and it means so, so much to me. It's so nice to just be treated as a human being with passion instead of an ostracized weirdo.
I have sat in some really nice cars and some really dingy trains but I've never once sat in a train and thought 'I wish I was in a car right now'
I'm serious, if trains were invented today by Elon Musk they would be described as the greatest invention of all time.
Trains are amazing on so many accounts,
Safer - its amazing how vehicles traveling along pre-ordained paths controlled by experienced workers is safe.
quieter - Outside of trains they're so infrequent that most of the time it's quiet. Inside of trains its jus quieter physically and also is a more consistent, its like white noise so I find it almost pleasant.
faster - trains go vroom vroom
efficient - both in fuel consumption and movement of people/goods.
smaller footprint - a train track is about 1.5m wide while. a single lane road is about 3.5m (ignoring pavements) and due to their higher efficiency you don't need as many multiple lanes. Also for every car sold its estimated 3 car parking spots are built which take up so much space.
luxurious - this is an opinion but i think its a strong one; in trains you're able to stand up do to it being safer and no need of seatbelts; you don't have to do anything except get on and off (in cars you have to do a thing called drive); trains travel at constant speeds so the journey is less jerky; access to small or sometimes large tables; more legroom; etc...
night trains - some trains which run overnight have beds which aren't the best but lying flat is luxuries when trying to sleep.
cheaper - cost of fuel, workers, maintenance is spread across all users and so is cheaper than cars which you have to pay for all of the above.
You may be thinking, trains are pretty cool but you can't just build train tracks through the middle of cities like roads; well let me introduce you to a marvellous invention, baby trains (trams). they are the inner city version of trains and full of there own advantages.
disability friendly - due to the tracks being imbedded into the ground they pose little tripping risk especially for elderly and disabled. Also less cars is just safer overall.
human friendly - due to there slow speeds and preordained paths, they're very easy for people to avoid and so can coexist in areas with people. This is a stark contrast to cars which dominate and own any surface they touch.
retake the streets - without cars streets return to the people meaning; children can play outside again, existing outside is better, more space for stuff like public markets.
Hey 196/19684! You know that fourth letter in LGBT? Tumblr apparently automatically flags that, and probably similar words, as not appropriate for all ages.
Longer version:
If you're, like me, new to Tumblr and are a reddit refugee from 196 or especially 19684, you might have your filter set to block certain types of content. ...or you might notice some of your posts about TRAINS RIGHTS or whatnot are not being liked, reblogged, or commented on. This might be because they're invisible to anyone who wants to avoid the h0rny and has their account settings set to hide that stuff.
So, er, either turn on mature and just block "h0rnyposting" and related tags or...IDK. I'm new to this. That's what I'm doing.
It is unlikely that Tumblr will fix this. Or anything. Ever. Not hating, just that's what I'm seeing in the discussions. We're just frolicking worms, playing pinochle in Tumblr's snout,
I've been careful not to add any obvious words related to this issue to this, in the hopes that you'll see it. IDK, if you see someone being under-engaged and this might be the reason, maybe give them a heads-up or share this with them or something or make a better less-rambling thingie?
Disclaimer: I could be wrong about how this all works, but the evidence is compelling.
Edit: The image above, I am informed, was not automatically flagged by Tumblr. This issue is real, but the image was flagged by the person making it to illustrate the point/joke.
tl;dr: Tumblr has decided that the existence of a swath of humans is a subject too spicy for many of its users, so you [may end up sometimes] invisible if you use [or are] certain keywords.
In case anyone is wondering what real-world train drama is going on, there’s this.
The tl;dr is that Amtrak wants to run two passenger trains per day round-trip (4 runs total) between Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana, restoring a service that hasn’t been there since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. CSX and Norfolk Southern, two major freight train companies, have resisted this idea, saying it would mess up their traffic, especially since Amtrak’s passenger trains would get priority (by government decree, believe it or not).
So now Amtrak is on Twitch streaming the line to prove the line isn’t too busy for them to run passenger trains.
On the 30th of September was the 175th Anniversary of the Schiefe Ebene in Neuenmarkt Wirsberg where the German Steam Locomotive Museum is. The Event lasted two days but I was only there for one. But I saw two large steamers, a class 50 and 52 (primarily goods engines). An old Railbus from the Wisentatalbahn, a pump trolly, and a narrow gauge steam locomotive.